Innocents Abroad, or `Are We There Yet?' / One of the gnarliest lessons of summer vacation is you can run from work and you can run from home, but lots of luck running from the clock

Vacations are a wonderful idea -- in theory. The premise is that you merrily ignore the concept of time as you let events flow from one to another. This is a laugh. I have seen space shuttles launched with less concern about the clock.

As an example, last week I was floating down a river, humming softly as the current spun our two- boat flotilla in gentle circles, while I tried to decide if it was worth sitting up to look to see if another fish was flitting below us.

It would probably mean another overflow of cold water into the lowest point of the inflatable raft -- which coincidentally happened to be where I was sitting -- but I was hot enough for the idea not to be entirely unappealing. If only it could all be done without moving.

Then there was a voice from the other side of the boat.

"Dad?"

"Ummmmmmmm."

"What are we doing tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?" I said. "Who cares?"

"Do you think we will rent bikes?"

"Bikes?" I said, thinking of the dusty, rarely ridden bicycles sitting in the garage. "I dunno. I guess it is possible."

"OK."

There was a short pause.

"What time do you think that will be?"

I don't believe we have ever spent so much time calculating how long until something else might begin, beginning with the ride up to the lake, which was not our family's finest four hours.

There was bickering, border disputes regarding the clearly defined other person's half of the car seat, and constant questions about how soon we would reach the next milestone.

And in the back seat, the kids were even worse.

The drive followed the usual pattern. We brought an enormous amount of travel-friendly material, including: the new portable CD player, new CDs, books (color and reading), GameBoy, GameBoy games, snacks and drinks.

And, before we even reached the freeway, the CDs had been played, the books were either, like, totally boring or already finished, the snacks had been spilled and doused with the drinks, and everyone realized that there was only one good GameBoy game and the other person was hogging it. So that went well.

Finally, after a thundering sermon from the front seat, full of threats that even an 11-year-old must have known were empty -- right, he's going to turn the car around and go home when we all know they've already put down a deposit on the cabin -- we settled quietly down behind our respective panes of glass and watched for little nostalgic landmarks.

"Is that the rest stop where Molly threw up?"

"A little farther down, I think."

There was a lull until someone said, purely by reflex, "How much longer?"

I never really understood the concept of the lake until last year. My wife is a long-standing laker, but I am more of a beacher. She kept at the idea though, until we gave it a try. Our first attempt was not a hit. We rented a cabin far in the mountains, which included a "lake membership." It was one of my wife's cherished memories from childhood and she couldn't wait to get over to the sand and water.

Unfortunately, apparently global warming (or the fact that she was no longer 13 years old) had shrunk the lake considerably. There was a narrow strip of sand, slanting down to a greenish, cold puddle a little larger than a football field.

The "beach" filled up quickly, so you had to arrive early, establish a perimeter with towels, chairs and umbrella, and hope that the guy with the radio didn't show up again so we could hear more "classic hits from the '60s and '70s."

After that, it was sit and bake until you were so hot that you were convinced that no matter how cold the water was, it would feel good if you went in. Invariably, you were wrong.

The highlight of the day was when we left someone to defend camp while the rest of us picked our way through the beach to the grill to buy lunch. (You were not allowed to bring in your own food). It wasn't long before the prospect of that little journey began to dominate our day. Even today the question: "Is it time to go get lunch yet?" can set us off.

We tried miniature golf (22 minutes and the ball disappeared into the 18th hole so you couldn't play any longer), drove to another lake (got lost), and had half of the fun- loving vacationers get food poisoning in the wee hours of one night (you don't want to hear about it).

So, when we tried again, this time traveling to a much larger lake, there may have been some skepticism. But this time it took. Our trip last year was a huge success, and it worked out just as well again this season.

I fell into a large body of fresh water at least once a day, often on purpose. We floated down the river, threw balls for Brody, the famous tree-climbing dog, and actually got along for minutes on end.

The kids left cartoons on TV to go outside and play badminton, swam in the pool and the lake, and agreed to trade off the hide-a-bed every other night.

One afternoon we even managed to gain control of a motorboat, allowing me to fulfill one of every man's most cherished dreams: command of a vessel. God, it was grand.

We not only motored around an island, after a long period of throttle adjustment, tidal consultation and random seafaring commands, I was able to beach us on what was a very quiet bit of sand -- until a big fellow in a larger boat accidentally ran himself so far up on the sand that his wife is probably still shrieking.

No matter, we simply sailed serenely away to another part of the lake. I had just re-riggered the starboard leeway and was preparing to luff the bow railing, when someone asked, "What time are we going back?"

On the last day, it appeared that the worst had happened. We'd done everything. We were down to the final option. We scared up a piece of string, tied on a rock for weight, grabbed a hunk of bacon and went down to the dock to stalk the elusive crawdad.

An hour later, we were still getting screams, laughter, and actual crawdad landings. We had pretty much filled the bottom of the bucket when I looked at my watch.